STORY UNIT MEMBERS NOTES

Assault / CTF / DOM specialists, by J.Morris

INSTALLATION:

PUT THE FILE: CommandoSkins_M.utx into your UnrealTournament\Textures directory.

PUT THE FILES: CommandoSkins_M.int + MC.u + MC.int into your UnrealTournament\System directory.

(if you have downloaded a .UMOD version of this pak that someone has kindly made for me, ignore the above.)

As most of us already know, it wasn't until after the 4th human shuttle mission to Mars in 2037, designed to set up the groundwork for the "Settler Project", that we had our first contact with one of the 3 known races that inhabit the red planet.
While drilling foundation pillars for the 200km wide Bioframe the team discovered a metal lined cavern, obviously engineered by intelligent beings. This was of course the world of the WRASS, and underground network of cities 80km down and spanning half the planet.

A group was selected to greet this race. Through the use of Lingual Scanners the team was able to determine the language of the WRASS and the first communication with intelligent life in our solar system was beamed to a thrilled human race. It was also discovered that the WRASS were familiar with what had become the Humans second spoken language "HTML" and they also used "Spoken HTML" to communicate with their machines. Surprisingly the WRASS even offered to help with the construction of the "Topside" Bioframe, treaties were agreed on and for now, all seemed well.
It was then no less than 24 hours after the initial contact with the WRASS that we met the 2nd race, and were prepared to greet them with open arms. The first sign of their existence was indeed spectacular as an entire world materialized around the surface team, huge skyscrapers twice as large as our own, roads ,villages , an advanced alien city (one of many) magically appeared as the "DRUNE" race showed their powers for bending light spectrums and revealed their existence. As we also know, due to the many memorials on earth reminding us of "Awakening Day" this became one of the most crucial and horrific days in the history of the human race. Thankfully we now have friendly relations with the "DRUNE" race, yet then the first of their ships appeared from where they had been sitting cloaked, to obliterate the "Settler Project" workers & base, simultaneously invading our planet it was a day that accounted for the greatest loss of human life in history.
It was only the intervention of the 3rd Martian race, the "KELREESE" that saved us from complete destruction. The KELREESE, are the spiritual leaders of the Universe and the oldest race in existence. They have colonised every inhabitable planet. Existing on each planet where they are needed in small groups of 20,000 to 30,000, their word is the law of time & space. Deeply spiritual they have the abilities of Telepathy, Matter Incursion and Time Travel, not time as we used to know it, but the 4th dimensional time that Humans have not yet been approved by the KELREESE to understand. It has been explained to us however as being "The existence of all things in a single moment, making it possible to be everywhere at once, whenever that "once" is". "Humans are like sheet of steel that will one day become a sheet of glass."
The KELREESE knew it was inevitable that the humans would colonise Mars no matter what resistance they encountered, due to the suffering state of their own planet. The "DRUNE" were ordered to cooperate with the HUMANS & the WRASS, and it was decided that a special unit containing representatives from each race was to be setup to police the process and for evermore serve as the TRINATION LAW.
Each Nation was allowed to set 1 guideline for the makeup of FORCE units.
HUMAN GUIDELINE = "All units must contain 1 "Entronic" member (HTML speaking robotics probe unit) for systems interface" this request was necessary as the humans had become completely reliant on their mechanical creations since the turn of the 21st century.
WRASS GUIDELINE = "All units must contain at least 1 full time chef, and uniforms must have many food pockets" It seemed a strange request yet the WRASS had a physical makeup that forced them to consume food every 30 minutes.
DRUNE GUIDELINE = "All Human recruits must undertake some for of self sacrifice to prove their trust & dedication to the Martian races" At this time the DRUNE were still feeling the humiliation of having to halt their attack on the Human race, this was their way of getting some small revenge.
KELREESE OVERCOUNCIL = "All units must have 1 KELREESE representative who has been given approval by the Overcouncil to kill another lifeform should the need arise." The KELREESE were very strictly against the killing of other lifeforms and found this a hard yet necessary guideline if the Trination Force was to succeed.
Lastly the KELREESE empowered all 3 Races with a Technology known now as the "TRIVOC" a vocal coder/decoder that enable all three languages to be spoken and understood by each race, (including entronics units).
So was born the MARS COMMANDOS...

UNIT MEMBERS
APHEX

APHEX was told to remove his own eye in order to graduate MC training camp, since that time he has gained heightened powers of Accuracy and Hearing.

The first HUMAN to become a TRINATION unit leader, APHEX is a total warrior and fierce defender of his team.

DRILL

SECOND IN COMMAND, only his furious temper and sometimes dangerous decision making have stopped DRILL from commanding his own unit. A seasoned commando, he is always on the attack.

MANDRAKE

Mandrake is half Human half Wrass, as such he was still ordered to sacrifice some part of his body and it was decided that his lips be stitched together due to the terrible grunting noises he would make during battle.

PROBE

The Human "spoken HTML" interface entronics unit, Probe is usually sent into missions ahead of the team to relay intelligence back to APHEX and the other team members. He was constructed from parts previously used as and airport ticketing system back on earth and has been known to malfunction on occasion.

EXON

KELREESE OVERCOUNCIL rep, exon has very limited fighting skills and can be heard praying after every kill he is forced to make. He is however a vital member of the team and uses his mind powers to asses enemy tactics and relay to the entire team.

LINK

By far the teams weakest member, he is also the most loved, for he is the Unit chef and his Martian Thwap Snake biscuits are reason enough for the rest of the team to protect him until meal time.

WILLARD

WRASS warrior, Willard is a heavy weapons expert and military muscle of the team, quiet and reserved.

REDMOND

While REDMOND may not appear to show the scars of his sacrificial duties to the UNIT, rumor has it that his high pitch voice and funny running style, mean that Redmond was called apon to make possibly the most painful self sacrifice of any Human team member.

NOTES

This is my first attempt at skins or voice for UT. I wanted them to be more of a group with character, so i needed to add the voice to make the whole thing come together.

I looked all around for tutorials for everything on sound and skins and then just set to work. When reading message boards etc from ppl who are interested in skins i also noticed that there is some serious talk about ppl who use others material and call it their own. I am more interested in the characters, story and overall look of things, than letting a nose ruin my day. ?? you are saying..??

have you ever tried to draw a nose?.. for the un-noseworthy such as myself it is not fun.. I can draw other stuff fairly well, but i seem to have some sort of hand nose coordination problem, so here is what I did.

I found a skin for the commandos i liked the look of then proceeded to destroy it.

I chose the Jungle Commandos, by ANDREW GRIFFIN because of his nasal perfection and here is his site. www.utskins.com/griffsskins . I can take no credit at all for the noses and well shaded skin areas.

Here is an example.

I used his skin and facial features as a template.

Ok here is a list of programs i used if anyone is interested.

SKINS

UnrealED / Paintshop Pro / Photoshop / Microsoft image composer

README

Paintshop Pro / Microsoft image composer / Word97 / Notepad / Microsoft Frontpage

VOICE PAK

Data Becker Music Center / Goldwave402 www.goldwave.com it's shareware program, and it's really cool so i thought i better put a link:) Windows Sound Recorder / UnrealED / and a program that saved me from going insane, after almost loosing a whole weekends work.... PlayThis VoicePack Creator, by Ben "GenisisX" Rogers 2000, at 4am on a Monday morning i promised i would kiss the guy who made this program if it worked.. after some FOOL!! put together a tutorial on how to make voice paks and sort of forgot to check that it was actually correct!! well umm it worked, here is a link to where you can get this great program. http://www.unreality.org/files/files.asp

OTHER STUFF

You can contact me here. or my icq is 57410833

If you want to see some of my paintings etc you can go here. Soon i will get round to making this into a site for my UT stuff also, but this is mainly where i keep some of the maps and skins i have done for Half-Life.

I hope you enjoy using, or playing against this team, they look cool in Assault games...

cya.

J.Morris

PS if you have a fairly slow system and the voice pak is slowing it up.. remove the files

MC.u and MC.int from your UnrealTournament\System directory. You won't have any Mars voices but you'll live.

PPS, The pictured drill site in the story is a DM map i made and it is set in the WRASS underworld and around the bioframe drilling site, it's one of 6 i have put together to test out the skins, i will post them somewhere sometime i suppose.

PPPS, I spent days doing suggested settings, they work well but they are not necessary, do whatever you think works.

Title :Mars Commandos
Version :1
Release Date :3/7/00
Filename :CommandoSkins_m.utx + CommandoSkins_m.int + MC.u + MC.int
Author(s) :J.Morris

Copyright / Permissions
-----------------------
You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this pak, i.e. put it on a CD
or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit
permission!
You MAY distribute this pak through any electronic network (internet,
FIDO, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file and leave the archive
intact.
----------------------
UNREAL (c)1998 Epic Megagames, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by
GT Interactive Software, Inc. under license. UNREAL and the UNREAL logo are
registered trademarks of Epic Megagames, Inc. All other trademarks and trade
names are properties of their respective owners.